Human experience is imbued by the sense of being an embodied agent. The investigation of such basic self-consciousness has been hampered by the difficulty of comprehensively modulating it in the laboratory while reliably capturing ensuing subjective changes. The present preregistered study fills this gap by combining advanced meditative states with principled phenomenological interviews: 46 long-term meditators (19 female, 27 male) were instructed to modulate and attenuate their embodied self-experience during magnetoencephalographic monitoring. Results showed frequency-specific (high-beta band) activity reductions in frontoparietal and posterior medial cortices (PMC). Importantly, PMC reductions were driven by a subgroup describing radical embodied self-disruptions, including suspension of agency and dissolution of a localized first-person perspective. Neural changes were correlated with lifetime meditation and interview-derived experiential changes, but not with classical self-reports. The results demonstrate the potential of integrating in-depth first–person methods into neuroscientific experiments. Furthermore, they highlight neural oscillations in the PMC as a central process supporting the embodied sense of self.

人类的经验充满了作为具体主体的感觉。对这种基本自我意识的研究一直受到阻碍，因为很难在实验室中对其进行全面调节，同时可靠地捕捉随之而来的主观变化。目前的预注册研究通过将高级冥想状态与原则性现象学访谈相结合来填补这一空白：46 名长期冥想者（19 名女性，27 名男性）被指示在脑磁图监测期间调节和减弱他们的具体自我体验。结果显示，额顶叶和后内侧皮质 (PMC) 的频率特异性（高 β 频带）活动减少。重要的是，PMC 的减少是由一个描述激进的自我破坏的小组推动的，包括中止代理和解散局部第一人称视角。神经变化与终生冥想和访谈产生的体验变化相关，但与经典的自我报告无关。结果证明了将深入的第一人称方法整合到神经科学实验中的潜力。此外，他们强调 PMC 中的神经振荡是支持自我体现感的核心过程。